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I love that other companies have sustainable alternatives to Google services. But these articles looks more like hype train and doesn’t really add any new value

I love that other companies have sustainable alternatives to Google services. But these articles looks more like hype train and doesn’t really add any new value for me. You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. Probably I’m getting old but I remember times when Google doesn’t exists. We had software for files, messages, calls, calendars etc. It was based on different protocols, may be less secure and more naive. But it was ok for these days. There is life outside of Google, and always was. May be for “millenials” you need to be brave to leave this circle, but I don't getting it. What is so special in using other providers? Is it just... normal?

stanferder 7y ago
> What is so special in using other providers? Is it just... normal? It's probably not normal. I've heard of Google, but not Fastmail, Matomo, Nextcloud, Collabra, Plex, Jellyfin, F-Droid, Aurora, Lineage, PinePhone, Simple Mobile Tools, Hover, Matrix, PocketCasts, AntennaPod, or "Ting".
jolmg 7y ago
> You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. Switch to another small one when they start to get big. Try to keep them all balanced. If only one person doing that was enough to get a nice competitive market...
awb 7y ago
> You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. This. At some point you have to trust someone. Even if you're off Google you're leaking data with your phone, credit card, smart TV, ISP, genetic testing, etc. I know privacy isn't all or nothing but with Email the party I'm communicating with already has a copy of the communication that they could forward to anyone or save with any other provider. I'd say ethics might be a larger reason to switch.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Yeah but if we use services from multiple companies we discourage monopoly and encourage competition.
zamadatix 7y ago
You ask why to things the article already started talking about. What do you think about what the article has already said about these things? Also note most of the things they have moved to are self hosted. For instance Cloudron could close tomorrow and they would still own their email address. Seems quite different than moving from a big company to a small company that wants to be a big company.
cmdshiftf4 7y ago
>May be for “millenials” you need to be brave to leave this circle, but I don't getting it. I don't think anyone is considering themselves brave for decoupling themselves from the Google-sphere. Leaving social media is a far greater step with ramifications, real, imaginary or simply comparatively, that I would commend younger people for being brave should they take the step. It's something that's truly going against the grain. I think the dearth of these type blog posts is to a) recognize that it's easy to encapsulate much of your digital reliance on Google and its services and therefore b) Real, or imaginary, it's quite difficult to take the step of decoupling from it and finally c) show that it is possible and less burdensome than people currently encapsulated believe it will be. The authors slant on this is a little different from some others that we've seen on here - Google can shut down your entire online ecosystem with the click of a button should you infringe some arbitrary standards set in T&Cs riddled with legalese, designed for people to not read. A close call opened his eyes, and he made the steps to decouple from Google. I don't think he's looking for some to cry "Oh my, you are so brave!" for doing so.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jvagner 7y ago
The point of this article is to switch from one Google for a lot of services to a disparate group of providers for same services... if one of the service providers goes away, or is no longer palatable, only the service they provide needs to be relocated. Google can suspend your account and the 20-30 things you depend on them can go away (or, at least, be unavailable in a customized fashion based on your own data). That's less of a risk if you use different providers for different services.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  To make matters worse, Google isn't known for their good customer service.
  - buran77 7y ago
    That's an understatement. Google's customer service is legendary in the sense that everyone's heard of it but nobody has actually been able to "see" it. But having bad customer service is just bad service, confiscating users' data really not unlike theft.
    - ravenstine 7y ago
      Imagine if your landlord decided to not only evict you but immediately confiscate any possessions you have in their property.
      - netsharc 7y ago
        The feudalism analogy applies here too, im the old times the lord in the castle (or somebody working for him) can banish you from his area, taking your possessions and severing your contacts with the community, ruining your business, and so on. And they don't even need a valid reason, and when you ask "Why?!?" the soldiers would dragging you would just ignore you..
    - faitswulff 7y ago
      Google's customer service is definitely quirky. You have to write up your issue somewhere and then submit it to this strange orange 1990s-looking website. Then they prioritize tickets with input from random strangers on the internet before they can be seen by someone with enough authority to help you. But generally if you can get into the top 30 issues or so, someone will help you.
avip 7y ago
It is considered normal to share trivialities online. You may cynically consider it "building an online presence", but more generously people like to share things... even obvious things... like this comment I'm writing.
mattigames 7y ago
> You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. So what? The point is to have different services upon different companies, even if tomorrow DuckDuckGo becomes a giant (unlikely anyways) the idea is to use it only for search not for everything. > May be for “millenials” you need to be brave to leave this circle, but I don't getting it. The article clearly states is for pragmatical reasons, where do you came out with him needing to be "brave" to do it? >What is so special in using other providers? Is it just... normal? As special as not helping yet another monopoly that has vast control over most people's lives, yeah maybe thats not so special to you and thats fine but it still a reasonable cause to advocate for.
mapgrep 7y ago
Five of his switches were to nextcloud, which is self hosted and open source. One was to self hosted email. Many of the others were things like web search, browser, etc, where it’s hard to avoid a company.
- tiatia 7y ago
  Web search, you can try yacy
xorand 7y ago
> There is life outside of Google, and always was. I had a collection of animations related to lambda calculus and alife on g+. Well, now is back online and moreover it is better, because I can add the option to remake these animations live, with js. http://imar.ro/~mbuliga/collection.html http://imar.ro/~mbuliga/collection.html
- xorand 7y ago
  Looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/S0kG880 https://imgur.com/a/S0kG880
rhizome 7y ago
>What is so special in using other providers Exactly what you imply with your nostalgia for PIMs: increased fragmentation. There is value in witholding information/data/usage from Google (or FB, or Amazon, or Palantir, etc.) -- particularly personal data that is most valuable in aggregate -- value that reflects a decreased ability to cause problems, worries, and/or concerns in users' lives.
dkersten 7y ago
> May be for “millenials” you need to be brave to leave this circle According to the Wikipedia definition of millennial, a large chunk of millennials also likely remember a time before Google.

stanferder 7y ago

> What is so special in using other providers? Is it just... normal? It's probably not normal. I've heard of Google, but not Fastmail, Matomo, Nextcloud, Collabra, Plex, Jellyfin, F-Droid, Aurora, Lineage, PinePhone, Simple Mobile Tools, Hover, Matrix, PocketCasts, AntennaPod, or "Ting".

jolmg 7y ago

> You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. Switch to another small one when they start to get big. Try to keep them all balanced. If only one person doing that was enough to get a nice competitive market...

awb 7y ago

> You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. This. At some point you have to trust someone. Even if you're off Google you're leaking data with your phone, credit card, smart TV, ISP, genetic testing, etc. I know privacy isn't all or nothing but with Email the party I'm communicating with already has a copy of the communication that they could forward to anyone or save with any other provider. I'd say ethics might be a larger reason to switch.

chrisco255 7y ago
Yeah but if we use services from multiple companies we discourage monopoly and encourage competition.

zamadatix 7y ago

You ask why to things the article already started talking about. What do you think about what the article has already said about these things? Also note most of the things they have moved to are self hosted. For instance Cloudron could close tomorrow and they would still own their email address. Seems quite different than moving from a big company to a small company that wants to be a big company.

cmdshiftf4 7y ago

>May be for “millenials” you need to be brave to leave this circle, but I don't getting it. I don't think anyone is considering themselves brave for decoupling themselves from the Google-sphere. Leaving social media is a far greater step with ramifications, real, imaginary or simply comparatively, that I would commend younger people for being brave should they take the step. It's something that's truly going against the grain. I think the dearth of these type blog posts is to a) recognize that it's easy to encapsulate much of your digital reliance on Google and its services and therefore b) Real, or imaginary, it's quite difficult to take the step of decoupling from it and finally c) show that it is possible and less burdensome than people currently encapsulated believe it will be. The authors slant on this is a little different from some others that we've seen on here - Google can shut down your entire online ecosystem with the click of a button should you infringe some arbitrary standards set in T&Cs riddled with legalese, designed for people to not read. A close call opened his eyes, and he made the steps to decouple from Google. I don't think he's looking for some to cry "Oh my, you are so brave!" for doing so.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

jvagner 7y ago

The point of this article is to switch from one Google for a lot of services to a disparate group of providers for same services... if one of the service providers goes away, or is no longer palatable, only the service they provide needs to be relocated. Google can suspend your account and the 20-30 things you depend on them can go away (or, at least, be unavailable in a customized fashion based on your own data). That's less of a risk if you use different providers for different services.

ravenstine 7y ago
To make matters worse, Google isn't known for their good customer service.
- buran77 7y ago
  That's an understatement. Google's customer service is legendary in the sense that everyone's heard of it but nobody has actually been able to "see" it. But having bad customer service is just bad service, confiscating users' data really not unlike theft.
  - ravenstine 7y ago
    Imagine if your landlord decided to not only evict you but immediately confiscate any possessions you have in their property.
    - netsharc 7y ago
      The feudalism analogy applies here too, im the old times the lord in the castle (or somebody working for him) can banish you from his area, taking your possessions and severing your contacts with the community, ruining your business, and so on. And they don't even need a valid reason, and when you ask "Why?!?" the soldiers would dragging you would just ignore you..
  - faitswulff 7y ago
    Google's customer service is definitely quirky. You have to write up your issue somewhere and then submit it to this strange orange 1990s-looking website. Then they prioritize tickets with input from random strangers on the internet before they can be seen by someone with enough authority to help you. But generally if you can get into the top 30 issues or so, someone will help you.

avip 7y ago

It is considered normal to share trivialities online. You may cynically consider it "building an online presence", but more generously people like to share things... even obvious things... like this comment I'm writing.

mattigames 7y ago

> You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. So what? The point is to have different services upon different companies, even if tomorrow DuckDuckGo becomes a giant (unlikely anyways) the idea is to use it only for search not for everything. > May be for “millenials” you need to be brave to leave this circle, but I don't getting it. The article clearly states is for pragmatical reasons, where do you came out with him needing to be "brave" to do it? >What is so special in using other providers? Is it just... normal? As special as not helping yet another monopoly that has vast control over most people's lives, yeah maybe thats not so special to you and thats fine but it still a reasonable cause to advocate for.

mapgrep 7y ago

Five of his switches were to nextcloud, which is self hosted and open source. One was to self hosted email. Many of the others were things like web search, browser, etc, where it’s hard to avoid a company.

tiatia 7y ago
Web search, you can try yacy

xorand 7y ago

> There is life outside of Google, and always was. I had a collection of animations related to lambda calculus and alife on g+. Well, now is back online and moreover it is better, because I can add the option to remake these animations live, with js. http://imar.ro/~mbuliga/collection.html http://imar.ro/~mbuliga/collection.html

xorand 7y ago
Looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/S0kG880 https://imgur.com/a/S0kG880

rhizome 7y ago

>What is so special in using other providers Exactly what you imply with your nostalgia for PIMs: increased fragmentation. There is value in witholding information/data/usage from Google (or FB, or Amazon, or Palantir, etc.) -- particularly personal data that is most valuable in aggregate -- value that reflects a decreased ability to cause problems, worries, and/or concerns in users' lives.

dkersten 7y ago

> May be for “millenials” you need to be brave to leave this circle According to the Wikipedia definition of millennial, a large chunk of millennials also likely remember a time before Google.